Laboratory Studies in the Sociology of Science: a Cultural Approach to Scientific Production

The emergence of approach laboratory studies in the sociology of science, is the consequence of a cultural turn in epistemology of this area. Rational approach based on a realist epistemology, considered science as a rational phenomenon, universal, non-social, one dimensional and ineffective of socio-cultural interests. But the cultural approach based on socio-cultural epistemology (or epistemological relativism) considered science as a quite social and cultural activity, and that have the fundamental connection with ideologies and socio- cultural values. Laboratory studies have focused on the interactions between the human and material vendors. Based on these studies, scientific activity is essentially local, mixed and accidental, so knowledge cannot be interpreted as an activity that obeys the rules of the scientific method. Laboratory studies of science showed that certain forces sociology and anthropology can enter the laboratory space, and show that there is also a political world filled with treaties negotiated and imposed to advancing to the paths accepted and based on seeing those things that should see them. In this paper, we introduce the tradition of laboratory studies in the sociology of science. And investigated the most important evidence and facts of this tradition in the sociologists of science and technology studies. Thus, we review the history of the laboratory studies, pioneers in this field are introduces (such as Michael Lynch, Karin Knorr-Cetina, Latour and Woolgar). Then, Bath school was considered as one of the main trends in this area, and in the end, the approach of laboratory studies was analyzed.